WHAT THE LEFT HAND … WAS DOING
By DARRELL T. LANGART
Illustrated by Freas
The building itself was unprepossessive enough. It was an old-fashioned,six-floor, brick structure that had, over the years, served first as aprivate home, then as an apartment building, and finally as theheadquarters for the organization it presently housed.
It stood among others of its kind in a lower-middle-class district ofArlington, Virginia, within howitzer range of the capitol of the UnitedStates, and even closer to the Pentagon. The main door was five steps upfrom the sidewalk, and the steps were flanked by curving balustrades ofornamental ironwork. The entrance itself was closed by a double doorwith glass panes, beyond which could be seen a small foyer. On bothdoors, an identical message was blocked out in neat gold letters: TheSociety For Mystical and Metaphysical Research, Inc.
It is possible that no more nearly perfect cover, no more misleadingfront for a secret organization ever existed in the history of man. Itpossessed two qualities which most other cover-up titles do not have.One, it was so obviously crackpot that no one paid any attention to itexcept crackpots, and, two, it was perfectly, literally true.
Spencer Candron had seen the building so often that the functionalbeauty of the whole setup no longer impressed him as it had severalyears before. Just as a professional actor is not impressed by beingallowed backstage, or as a multimillionaire considers expensive luxuriesas commonplace, so Spencer Candron thought of nothing more than his ownpersonal work as he climbed the five steps and pushed open theglass-paned doors.
Perhaps, too, his matter-of-fact attitude was caused partially by theanalogical resemblance between himself and the organization. Physically,Candron, too, was unprepossessing. He was a shade less than five eight,and his weight fluctuated between a hundred and forty and a hundred andforty-five, depending on the season and his state of mind. His faceconsisted of a well-formed snub nose, a pair of introspective gray eyes,a rather wide, thin-lipped mouth that tended to smile even when relaxed,a high, smooth forehead, and a firm cleft chin, plus the rest of thenormal equipment that normally goes to make up a face. The skin wasslightly tanned, but it was the tan of a man who goes to the beach onsummer weekends, not that of an outdoorsman. His hands were strong andwide and rather large; the palms were uncalloused and the fingernailswere clean and neatly trimmed. His hair was straight and light brown,with a pronounced widow's peak, and he wore it combed back and ratherlong to conceal the fact that a thin spot had appeared on the top rearof his scalp. His clothing was conservative and a little out of style,having been bought in 1981, and thus three years past being up-to-date.
Physically, then, Spencer Candron, was a fine analog of the Society. He[11]looked unimportant. On the outside, he was just another average manwhom no one would bother to look twice at.
The analogy between himself and the S.M.M.R. was completed by the factthat his interior resources were vastly greater than anything thatshowed on the outside.
The doors swung shut behind him, and he walked into the foyer, thenturned l